British female jihadis sign up to the Islamic State's all-women police force

Female jihadi from UK posts on Twitter a photo of her suicide belt as dozens
of women flock to Syria to join the terror state

A key figure in the al-Khanssaa brigade, according to researchers at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), is Aqsa Mahmood, a 20-year-old woman from Glasgow who fled to Syria in November last yearPhoto: ENTERPRISE NEWS AND PICTURES

British female jihadis are running an ultra-religious police force that punishes women for un-Islamic behaviour in territory controlled by Islamist terrorists, The Telegraph can disclose.

New evidence shows a number of British female recruits to the al-Khanssaa brigade, an all-women militia set up by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

The al-Khanssaa brigade is operating in Raqqa, the Syrian city where Isil has set up its headquarters in the country. Security services believe that the American hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff were both beheaded in the desert surrounding Raqqa.

It is quite possible that the British women involved in the al-Khanssaa brigade will know the true identity of the suspect - known in the media as 'Jihadi John’ and thought to be from the south east England - who executed them.

A key figure in the al-Khanssaa brigade, according to researchers at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), based in King’s College in London, is Aqsa Mahmood, a 20-year-old woman from Glasgow who fled to Syria in November last year.

Academics have identified three other women - all from the UK - who are members of the brigade. In all, ICSR believes about 60 British women have gone to Syria on jihad. The ICSR has a database of 25 British women it monitors.

The vast majority of the British women who have gone to Syria are aged between 18 and 24, typically 20 and under, with dozens more making inquiries about jihad in the past three weeks following the beheading of Mr Foley and the subsequent release of a video of his execution.

Mahmood, who was educated at private school and had wanted to be a doctor, is linked to the al-Khanssaa brigade through her jihadi name Umm Layth, which she uses on social network sites.

The ICSR research team has linked Umm Layth to a cluster of at least three other women Umm Haritha, Umm Ubaydiah and Umm Waqqas all from Britain but whose true identities are not clear. Umm Ubaydiah, who also has Swedish connections, is thought to run the social networking account for al-Khanssaa.

A picture tweeted by Aqsa Mahmood, who goes by the name of @UmmLayth on twitter

In one internet posting at the end of August, Umm Waqqas describes the other women as 'her sisters’ and links them to the al-Khanssaa brigade.

Another cluster of four British women have used Twitter to express interest in joining the al-Khanssaa brigade.

Those women are also living in Raqqa. One of them - known only as Umm Farriss - who arrived in Syria in February posted on the internet a picture of her suicide belt, the first evidence that British woman are being armed with bombs.

Under the isil interpretation of Islamic law, women are not permitted to fight but they are allowed to engage in suicide bombings.

According to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, a US-based monitoring group, al-Khanssaa was set up by Isil commanders in February this year.

Its members are all single women, who dress in black robes and wear a face veil. Brigade members are paid a monthly salary of 25,000 Syrian pounds - about £100.

Umm Farriss

Their duties include the strict enforcement of sharia law dress code as well as searching burka-clad women to ensure they are not enemy fighters in disguise.

Melanie Smith, a research associate at ICSR, said: “Al-Khanssaa is a sharia law police brigade. This is Isil’s female law enforcement. We think it’s a mixture of British and French women but its social media accounts are run by the British and they are written in English.

“Given how small the community networks are - we know there are about 500 male British jihadis out there - it is quite likely these women move in the same circles as the British killer of Foley and Sotloff.”

It is thought the British women are being given key roles in the brigade because they are considered by Isil commanders to be the most committed of the foreign female jihadis to the cause.

Al-Khanssaa patrols walk the streets of Raqqa seeking out inappropriate mixing of the sexes and anyone engaging in Western culture.

Miss Smith said: “The British women are some of the most zealous in imposing the IS laws in the region. I believe that’s why at least four of them have been chosen to join the women police force.”

Miss Smith, who monitors social media for clues to the movements of British female jihadis, said more women are heading for Syria on a daily basis.

“In the last week I have encountered two dozen Twitter accounts of women wanting to get across the border into Syria from Turkey,” she said, “The number of women wanting to go has sky rocketed in the last week.

“It is now easier for women to make jihad than men because they are under less suspicion when they leave the UK.”

By monitoring 25 British women, ICSR has built up a database of names and patterns of behaviour of the women who have gone to Syria for jihad.

Other British female jihadis in Raqqa have gained a reputation for making blood-thirsty threats against the West.

Khadijah Dare, from Lewisham in south London, used Twitter to celebrate Mr Foley’s beheading.

Khadijah Dare

She announced on twitter that she wanted to become the first female to behead a western prisoner in Syria, while last week Sally Jones, 45, a former housewife from Kent who converted to Islam and is thought to use the name Umm Hussain al-Britani, said on Twitter: “You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railings at Raqqa... Come here I’ll do it for you!”

Jones, although far older than the typical female British jihadi, is married to another jihadi fighter in Raqqa.

In the past week, Miss Smith has uncovered another cluster of young British women, at least two of whom have connections to the Ladbroke Grove area of west London but whose real identities are not yet known.

They include Umm Farriss, who posted the photograph of her suicide belt on July 17. Her friends use the aliases UkhtiB, GreenBirds22 and Umm Talib on Twitter and they all live close to each other in low blocks of flat around a courtyard.

While they have been living in Raqqa they continue to talk to friends in the UK. Some of them use Askfm to answer questions which help their friends know what life is really like in the Islamic State.

Their Twitter accounts reveal a mundane side to jihad for women in Syria. “They tweet pictures of suicide belts but then they also talk about food and clothes and going out and other gossip,” said Miss Smith, “They are doing normal girlie things like going shopping but set against a context of jihadi war. It’s bizarre.”

Many of the women heading for Syria had gone there to find a husband among the jihadi fighters who they may have already made contact with on Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

Miss Smith says the jihadi social media is 'buzzing’ with marriage proposals and many of the fighters have taken several wives.

The British researchers now believe the 16-year-old twins from Manchester who travelled to Syria earlier in the summer have split up and are living with their own male fighter husbands.

Salma and Zahra Halane, who have 28 GCSEs between them left Chorlton, Greater Manchester and arrived in Raqqa in June.

Salma and Zahra Halane

Miss Smith said a famous Dutch jihadi, known as Yilmaz, who married this week has 'broken the hearts’ of scores of Western Muslim women who have all made marriage proposals in the last few months.

A monitor of Yilmaz’s internet accounts show that he received an astonishing 10,000 marriage requests during his time as a jihadi fighter up until his marriage.

Miss Smith said: “it is clear that some of these women who have been travelling to Syria have since married jihadists and foreign fighters”. Some, said Miss Smith, want to marry a martyr.

Umm Waqqas, the British woman with the al-Khanssaa brigade, recently tweeted: “The wives my husband will get in Jannah [paradise] are beyond perfecto In Shaa Allah.... Best co-wives any girl could ask for.”

There is evidence the women are bored in Raqqa, often confined to their houses. There is evidence some have asked to abandon their domestic work and switch to fighting.

But last week such calls from women to be allowed to fight provoked a response from the al-Khanssaa: “Sisters take note that the battlefield is not for you unless Muslims are in dire need of both women AND men. You can benefit in other ways.”

Aqsa Mahmood, the former private schoolgirl now working for the al-Khanssaa brigade, is typical of the impressionable young women who have turned to jihad and married a fighter out there. The move has left her parents heartbroken.

In an interview with the American broadcaster CNN, her father Muzaffar Mahmood pleaded with her to return home. “Aqsa - my dear daughter please come back, I’m missing you so much. Your brothers and sisters miss you a lot. My dearest daughter, in the name of Allah, please come home. I love you.”

It is a plea that will likely fall on deaf ears. Before crossing the border into Syria, she made one last phone calls to her parents at home. She told them: “I will see you on the day of judgement. I will take you to heaven, I will hold your hand,” before adding ominously: “I want to become a martyr.”